.

Avoiding “Deaths by PowerPoint”
Data Storytelling and Python to the rescue
Sebastián Flores, PyCon US 2024, May 18th

Death by PowerPoint (noun):

A painful experience caused by a long, boring presentation with too many slides filled with text, small fonts, and endless bullet points. Common symptoms include sleepy eyes, yawning, and a strong desire to escape.

Example: “After an hour, I felt like I was dying by PowerPoint.”

(See also: meeting purgatory, presentation torture)

About me


  • Sebastián Flores aka sebastiandres
  • Member of Python Chile
  • Collaborator to Streamlit and Vizzu
  • Chief Data Officer at uPlanner

Agenda

  • No
  • Nope
  • No chance

Storytelling principle #1:

Never give away the ending!

Always raise the stakes!

Data Storytelling

Why Data Storytelling?

¿Storytelling?





Stories are

the first human technology

Ohh, those hackable brains

Peak-End Rule Image by sketplanation

Game of Thrones rating, by Kelvin Neo




Data Storytelling:

Using storytelling tricks to create presentations that will be remembered and that create impact

Emotions create actions

The best example



How to make millions of people share statistics on social media?

Data Storytelling

Tool #1: Visualization

Data Exploratory Viz

Too many options!
User cannot be responsible of finding your insights.

Storytelling principle #2:

Details are important,

but not all details are important.

Data Explanatory Viz

So many good python libraries!

  • Classic: Matplotlib
  • Rising starts: Seaborn, Plotly, Altair
  • Other: plotnine, pygal, bokeh

Pick one and master it

Don’t share numbers. Share a story.

(C) Storytelling with Data, por Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic.

Vizzu

A Data Storytelling library in JS & Python

Show the code 
import pandas as pd
from ipyvizzu import Data, Config, Style
from ipyvizzustory import Story, Slide, Step

# Import the date
df = pd.read_excel("./data/python_conference.xlsx", 
            dtype={"year": str, "location": str, "attendees": int, "type":str})

# Create story object, add data to it
data = Data()
data.add_df(df)
story = Story(data=data)

# Set the size of the HTML element and activate tooltip
story.set_size("100%", "400px")
story.set_feature("tooltip", True)

# Each slide here is a page in the final interactive story
slide1 = Slide(
    Step(
        Config.stackedColumn(
            {
                "x": "year",
                "y": "attendees",
                "title": "Pycon Attendees",
            }
        ),
        Style({"plot": {"xAxis": {"label": {"angle": 2.0}}}}),
    )
)
story.add_slide(slide1)

# Each slide here is a page in the final interactive story
slide2 = Slide(
    Step(
        Config.stackedColumn(
            {
                "x": "year",
                "y": "attendees",
                "stackedBy": "type",
                "title": "Pycon Attendees",
            }
        ),
        Style({"plot": {"xAxis": {"label": {"angle": 2.0}}}}),
    )
)
story.add_slide(slide2)

# Each slide here is a page in the final interactive story
slide3 = Slide(
    Step(
        Config.stackedColumn(
            {
                "x": "year",
                "y": "attendees",
                "stackedBy": "type",
                "title": "Pycon Attendees",
            }
        ),
        Style({"plot": {"xAxis": {"label": {"angle": 2.0}}}}),
    )
)
story.add_slide(slide3)

# Percentages
slide3 = Slide(
    Step(
        Config.percentageColumn(
            {
                "x": "year",
                "y": "attendees",
                "stackedBy": "type",
            }
        ),
    )
)
story.add_slide(slide3)

# Play the created story!
story.play()

Data Storytelling

Tool #2: AI

Storytelling principle #3:

Your first draft is always going to be terrible.



  • Use AI chatbots for:
    • Analogies and examples
    • Prompts to create better images!
  • Don’t search for images, create them!

Data Storytelling

Tool #3: Presentation

Storytelling principle #4:

Show, don’t tell.

Show, don’t tell.

Guido’s eyes lit up as the terminal finally executed without errors. A wide grin spread across his face. He jumped up from his chair, fists raised in triumph. “Yes!” he exclaimed, as he savored the moment of triumph with a deep, contented sigh.

Guido was happy because he solved the bug on his code.

Presentation tools

  • Classic: PowerPoint
  • “Show don’t tell” tools: quarto, jupyter + RISE, streamlit
  • Other: canvas, revealjs, prezi



quarto

An open-source scientific and technical publishing system.

Focus on scientific markdown, dynamic & interactive documents based on code (Python/R/Julia).

https://quarto.org/

Code

---
title: "Habits"
author: "John Doe"
format:
  revealjs:
    transition: fade
    theme: black
    toc: true
    center: true
---

## Getting up

- Turn off alarm
- Get out of bed

---

## Going to sleep 
::: { .incremental }

- Get in bed
- Count sheep

:::

Slides



Jupyter + RISE

Jupyter plugin to display notebooks as revealjs slides.

https://rise.readthedocs.io/

Jupyter + RISE



Streamlit

All python and as interactive as you can to code it…

https://streamlit.io/

Streamlit

A decision flow

  • PowerPoint: Single use no-code presentation
  • Quarto: Talks from related documents (books, articles)
  • Jupyter + RISE: Workshops or classes. Executing code is important
  • Streamlit: Customized/experimental presentations

End

Two stories

Data Storytelling for me

Data Storytelling for you?

I believe that…



  • Data Storytelling is a crucial skill
  • YOU can learn Data Storytelling skills and tools

Feedback

flowchart LR
  A{"Liked the talked?"} --> |Yes| B{"Answer feedback?"}
  A --> |No| B
  B --> |Yes| C{"Keep in touch?"}
  C --> Z["Thanks for coming to my talk!"]
  B --> |No| Z

https://tally.so/r/3NAPeb

Thank you!

sebastiandres | https://sebastiandres.xyz

https://tally.so/r/3NAPeb

¡Gracias!

sebastiandres | https://sebastiandres.xyz